LA10 Syllabus

Mrs. Sara Hopkins

Portable 1-B (3rd period planning, 1st lunch)
hopkinss@svsd410.org
(425)831-8207
Teacher Website: sarahopkins.weebly.com

Communication skills are the backbone of culture. With strong communication skills, your ability to
succeed in any endeavor, career, pursuit, or goal will be greatly enhanced. Without these skills, you will
be handicapped in almost everything you attempt in life. Language Arts courses are by their very nature
designed to help you develop skills and gain knowledge that is essential to your present and future
success in every aspect of your life: your family life, your professional life, your economic life. Towards
this end, below are my goals for each student in my Language Arts classes:

1. All students will pass both the reading and the writing HSPE on the first attempt and will earn at
minimum a passing grade in this course.
2. All students will master and polish their skills in the structured writing program they began last
year and the advanced thinking skills that are the basis of it.
3. All students will become more mature, sophisticated writers, readers, and thinkers.
4. All students will develop more advanced higher level thinking skills through the reading, writing,
listening, and speaking that we do in class.
5. All students, through the literature we read, will become more culturally aware and develop a
broader vision of the world around them and the importance of the role he/she will play in that
world.
6. All students will develop the skills necessary to compete in college and in the economic
workplace.
7. All students will gain a greater appreciation for great literature from a variety of cultures.

Common Core Standards for Washington State

The entire curriculum for this course is based on the Common Core Standards developed for all schools in
Washington State. Follow the link below to see these standards:

http://www.k12.wa.us/CoreStandards/ELAstandards/pubdocs/CCSSI_ELA_Standards.pdf#34

Essential Questions for this Course
1. How does one overcome the flaws of humankind to find hope, beauty, purpose, and identity in
this imperfect world?
2. What is the inherent nature of humankind: are we good, evil, or something in between?
3. How does fear contribute to human motivation and how can courage overcome that fear?
4. How does a students background, and hence their perspective, affect his/her understanding of
decision, actions, consequences, other people, and the world as a whole?

Curriculum
LITERATURE:
Novels:
All Quiet on the Western Front
Night
Lord of the Flies
The Catcher in the Rye
Plays:
Antigone
Julius Caesar
Short Stories:
all stories in the LA10 anthology are possibilities
Poetry:
all poems in the LA10 anthology are possibilities
Non-Fiction:
any selections in the LA10 anthology are possibilities plus supplemental items

WRITING:
(note: a heavy emphasis is placed on the types of writing and the skills required on the HSPE)
Expository essays
Literary analysis
Persuasion/Argumentation
Basic of MLA format
VOCABULARY:
Vocab for College B workbook
SAT wordlists and SAT prep
Word choice/diction in essay writing
GRAMMAR:
As needed, but could include parts of speech, parts of the sentence, phrases, clauses,
punctuation, usage, sentence openings, sentence variety
SKILLS/KNOWLEDGE:
Literary terms/rhetorical devices
Genres of writing
Elements of fiction: plot, theme, character, point of view, etc.
Close reading/analysis of texts
HSPE writing/reading
Argumentation/persuasive techniques
Diction and syntax choices in Writing
Mastery of structured writing

Grading Categories and Scale
CATEGORIES:
Assessment/Writing: 50% (major grades: essays, major tests, projects; 8-10/semester)
Practice/Daily Work: 40% (minor grades: homework, study questions, reading logs...)
Vocabulary/Grammar: 10%

GRADING SCALE:
A (100-93%) A- (92.99-90%)
B+ (89.99-87%) B (86.99-83%) B- (82.99-80%)
C+ (79.99-77%) C (76.99-73%) C- (72.99-70%)
D+ (69.99-67% D (66.99-60%) F (59.99-0%)

Contact Information
Phone: (425)831-8207
Email: hopkinss@svsd410.org
Teacher Website: sarahopkinsla.weebly.com